Penny Arcade

When I make a character in a massively multiplayer game, I tend to “go hard” on the embroidery aspect.  That is to say, I like to tart shit up on the narrative front, imbuing landmarks and even world geometry with increasingly fruity elaborations.

Star Wars is the first game to make other people play the way I always try to; when I was getting set up for my first instance, I dropped a little RP while we were waiting for the shuttle and to my utter surprise Gabriel actually took the bait.  We ran the whole instance that way, and we were able to do it because the game’s dialogue trees have made him think, and occasionally think hard, about who his character might be.

Gabriel told me a story about he and Kara that gets right to it, I think.  I have no idea how Bioware intends to keep this up, this level of raw production, but they’ve already given me several experiences that I’ve filed away permanently.  There’s good stuff in there.  Not just “good for an MMO.”  Actually, genuinely good.

There’s an incredibly short list of people I trust to tell me the truth about the industry, even if I don’t always want to hear it, and Ben Kuchera is on top of that list.  You may already be a reader of his at Ars Technica, where he’s been in charge of their gaming coverage for…  well, ever.  Until today, I guess, when I hired him.

We’re bringing him on to create industry coverage you can read without holding your nose, essentially; I want a perspective, I want a Curator for the Internet’s gaming content.  In a couple words, I want something less insulting and disposable.

We used to rail about IGN in our innocence, back when we couldn’t imagine anything worse.  News is pretty much busted at the moment; you may be shocked to hear it, but deadlines every twenty minutes put you on the wrong side of quality versus quantity.  We have a track record of seeing broken things, and making an attempt to fix them; this is our attempt, and Ben is at the core of that.  I’ve wanted something like this for awhile, and so we’ve begun to make it.  Of course, you’re welcome to read it as well.

Do you want to meet Ben, figure out what his deal is?  He’s running a Q&A in the forums now.

  (CW)TB out.

what those behind be for

I’m in love with Star Wars the Old Republic. I love the class quests and the flashpoints and the companions and the crafting and the space missions and all that shit! I could go on and on about how great I think the game is but that’s no fun. Here are the things I hate:

My biggest problem with the game right now is actually a pretty minor issue. I really feel like all Jedi should have a “Jedi Robe” gear slot so that no matter what ridiculous outfit I end up with I can always toss a dark brown robe over the top. I had a great hooded robe early on that I recently had to replace with a ridiculous looking white dress because of its stats.

There are plenty of times in MMO’s where your character just looks dumb. As a general rule it feels like SW:TOR goes out of it’s way to minimize this but it’s still going to happen. The problem is that it doesn’t bother me as much in other games because I’m not acting out an epic space opera with my friends every night. When we are in a shared cut scene and the camera passes over Tycho in his bad ass trooper armor and lands on me with my goofy silver headband and white dress I feel like an idiot trying to deliver my bad ass lines. I just want to be able to throw on a robe, pull the hood up and kick some ass. If Bioware really wants to be nice they could even give us the option to put the hood up or down! The robe doesn’t even need to have stats. Think of it like the shirt slot in WoW. You could get them in a handful of different colors and they’d just be for looks.

I’ve seen some pretty cool looking gear at the higher levels and I’m certainly excited to try and get some of it. But think about it, Obi-wan Kenobi had to have been at least level 50 and that fucker just wore a brown robe. Give me the same option!

I also really dislike the Orbital Stations. When someone on another planet asks for help I think “I’ll need to go from ship to airlock to hallway to elevator to orbital station to shuttle to spaceport to fuck you I’m not helping you with that quest.” If I want to quick travel (or space hearth as we like to call it) I click on a doodad and a shuttle is sent to pick me up. How about you just send my ship? or a shuttle to take me to my ship or whatever just get me to my ship without making me go through a maze of hallways and load screens.

Finally how about the ability to undo your choice of talent branch. Personally I like my choice of Jedi Shadow but I’ve seen people in our guild level characters to near twenty before deciding they should have picked the other branch and they end up rolling a new character. Obviously this could cost a ton of money or have limited uses or whatever but at least give people the option. Ideally I’d love the ability to have a couple talent specs I could switch between as well. What’s interesting to me is that these sorts of options exist in other games and so it almost seems like not allowing them in SW:TOR is a conscious decision rather than a careless omission. I’d be very interested in hearing the thinking behind that.

Finally if you aren’t playing Hero Academy on your iOS device you should be.

-Gabe out